Текст книги "Return Once More"
Автор книги: Trisha Leigh
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
I turned my back on the lighthouse and then headed toward the bridge that connected it to mainland Egypt, enjoying the squish of sand and seaweed under my soft sandals. The Temple of Isis lurched from the ground in front of me, a massive but not particularly pretty structure of brown-and-tan mud brick. Twin guardians flanked the entrance, each seated in front of an ornately carved panel. Multiple sets of stone staircases, bright tiled roofs, and what appeared to be some kind of guard tower decorated the interior grounds. I could have pulled a detailed map up in my mind through the bio-tat, but drinking it in with nothing but my own eyes satisfied me. What each building contained no longer mattered, and simply seeing it was new and perfect.
The temple to the goddess, set high in the center, rose up inside the plain and sturdy outer walls. Impressive columns ran down the sides and the detailed images carved into their tops, the golden sculptures peering at me from the safety of Isis’s walls, distracted me to the point that I tripped. My dress tore and the pebbled ground ripped the skin from my knee, leaving it bloody.
“Damn,” I cursed under my breath.
It didn’t come out that way. It came out in ancient Greek, one of the more common languages in Alexandria during this period. Most inhabitants of the city would also understand and speak Aramaic, Egyptian, and even Hebrew, depending on their interaction with the Jews. My people, I supposed, though none of us thought of ourselves as anything but citizens of Genesis.
I checked my knees, trying to clean them as best I could. Hopefully the injury wouldn’t complicate the contamination check when I returned to Sanchi. Time would be tight, and a forced shower could be the tipping point. I brushed the dirt and stone dust off my palms and continued walking, taking more care as I crossed the hepta-stadium to the mainland.
The sight of the library—the most famous in human history, perhaps, and one of our most tragic losses until Georg Trout stumbled on the formula that made time travel possible—stopped me in my tracks. The histories and stories and scrolls that had been lost when nature dumped the coastline of Alexandria into the sea were now carefully catalogued with all of the other documents in the Archives on Sanchi. There was a backup of the entire system on Tanis, too. Our civilization took care with the information it had taken years to amass and store.
In this world, the scrolls remained safe and sound, at home in the library that rose five or six stories above the shore. Awe made my jaw drop to my chest like some kind of cartoon character. Multiple arches and rows of columns decorated the façade. A crop of palm trees—or maybe date trees—sprouted front and center, obscuring the primary entrance from the road. It looked exactly as a library should look: stately, sturdy, and sprawling, as though it had every intention of expanding along with the knowledge housed inside.
It pulled at me, begging me to go in, to spend hours among the scrolls, but I didn’t have hours. If I wasn’t back by Reflection class they would come looking for me. If I wanted to see my True’s face, it needed to happen fast. Then things could go back to normal.
The sun climbed as I hiked toward the palace, my feet picking up the pace as sweat dripped down the side of my face. I brushed it away with the back of my hand, leaving a trace of rough sand on my wet skin. Once I reached the finger of land that supported the palace and its grounds, it became clear why it had not survived.
The enormous living quarters, gardens, temples, and various outbuildings perched precariously on an isthmus jutting out into the water. It had simply crumbled away, the same way erosion, combined with earthquakes, had stolen Southern California in 2210 and then half of Louisiana in 2440.
It was hard to believe all of this would one day rest at the bottom of the ocean.
I’d spent the walk scrolling through historical data in my mind, but hadn’t yet figured out where Caesarion might be at this time of day. The official records lacked confirmed details about his movements, but I still had common sense and historical training to fall back on. Caesarion’s mother had died earlier this morning. Even thinking about losing my mother twisted my heart, swelled panic into my throat.
If she died, I would seek peace. Time alone, before facing the expectations of the world.
I headed for the immense palace gardens without thinking too hard about the choice. They would hide him, give him privacy to express the severity of his loss. My state of dress should allow me access to the grounds. No one would suspect a lady in broad daylight, and I could easily pass for one of the hundreds of concubines who lived in the royal palace.
What if he was a royal jerk? What if I saw Caesarion and felt nothing and all, and this entire trip became nothing but a worthless risk?
No. Maybe those things would happen, but I wasn’t turning around before I knew for sure.
I forced my feet the final steps to the gates. My heart pounded so loud it hurt my ears but the palace guards, dressed in animal-skin sarongs with weapons strapped to their bare chests and hips, barely spared me a glance as I entered.
Fifty years into life on Genesis, and as a girl, I still felt dismissed on occasion. It turned out the inclination to judge someone based on their anatomy ran deeper than any other prejudice in our species, and expunging gender discrimination had been the hardest task of the Genesis establishment team. But in Caesarion’s world, my femaleness allowed me access to private grounds that would have been barred to me if I had a penis. Thank you, vagina.
I’d worried Caesarion would still be in his rooms, or already gone from the city. I wound through the lush gardens, dizzy from the cloying perfume on the sea breeze and the lack of sense in my brain, knowing I would never work up the nerve to try another time if I didn’t find him this morning. My crushing disappointment lifted at the sight of a figure underneath a sagging date tree. It was a boy, seated on a stone bench in front of a burbling fountain. My heart slammed into my ribs, and my mouth went dry. What felt like a million tiny little magnets came alive under my skin, tugged me toward the still form, but walking with knees made of water proved impossible.
Something deep in the core of me recognized him, even without seeing his face.
Caesarion.
Chapter Seven
Nothing the geneticists or Sarah or anything ever written about Trues had prepared me for this experience. For this feeling of knowing someone else with a glance, for seeing my whole future open up in front of me. My body felt exposed, all of my nerves open and raw as I stared, rooted in place by a pleasant, buzzing terror.
A tunic of dark purple linen covered his slumped, shaking shoulders and his black hair was shaved close to his scalp. Sadness surrounded him like a cloak, diffusing into the air and burning in my throat. An innate desire to comfort him drew me forward even though I should have turned around the moment it became clear we were alone together.
He heard my footsteps and swiveled his head. Midnight-blue eyes flicked to me for the briefest of seconds, so fogged with grief I doubted they registered much of anything. Then he waved a dismissive hand in my general direction. “You’re very pretty, but passing the morning with you won’t fix anything. Leave me.”
The air between us felt charged, left me short of breath, as though someone had punched all of the oxygen from my body. I dug my fingernails into the rough bark of a date palm to try to anchor myself, but it didn’t help. He’d noticed me. Spoken to me. Shit.
I was in big, fat trouble.
Even though the brain stem tat insisted I leave, that Caesarion—Pharaoh—had dismissed me, moving required muscle control, which required oxygen, which required breathing, and basic motor function felt like the vaguest of concepts. I wasn’t connected to my body, somehow.
Then the reason for his dismissal struggled through the haze, and it felt like an elephant kicked me in the stomach—he thought me a concubine, dispatched to ease his sorrow.
Heat flooded my cheeks. Tingles spread through my skin as I tried to back away from this boy who inhabited a world so impossibly different from mine. Apparently the wardrobe of a lady and a prostitute didn’t differ all that much around these parts, but regardless, this wasn’t going as planned. Starting with the fact that I was absolutely, positively not supposed to be talking to him.
I glanced up at the sky, waiting for things to start blowing up. For the future to start changing here and now because of what I’ve done.
Nothing happened. Yet.
Caesarion’s long fingers curled into fists where they rested on his thighs. His rigid posture signaled his annoyance—perhaps at being glimpsed in his grief, perhaps because I still stood, rooted to the ground at his back. And despite his dismissive, superior air, when he said leave me, I heard leave me alone. I ached with the knowledge that his mother had just died, that the foundations of his world had been crumbling for the better part of his life, and they were about to wash completely away.
I didn’t want to leave him. He didn’t have to be alone.
My fear of breaking the no-contact rule, verbal or otherwise, asserted itself even though I badly wanted to correct his rather insulting—at least to me—assumption. Not interacting was the first and most often repeated regulation pounded into our apprentice heads, and offended or not, my tongue might as well have been sawdust.
Before I could obey the bio tat’s commands to keep silent and turn tail, Caesarion stood on strong legs. I had a brief impression of shorter stature, a sinewy covering of tanned muscle, and an enticing air of power before he stepped over the stone bench separating us and grabbed me.
His fingers bit into the flesh of my upper arm. Terror looped around my heart in a tight coil, squeezing as pain spiked in the base of my skull. I squeaked as the bio tat’s attempt to force me away from my True’s touch almost dropped me to my knees. I gazed up into his face, trying to gauge his intent, or how to escape this situation gone suddenly, horribly wrong, and realized his eyes were closed. I stilled, mesmerized by the sight of his long, black lashes against his ruddy cheeks.
“Maybe it could help,” he muttered. Pain trickled over his face like a dozen rivers that connected in his eyes, spilling a lone tear down his cheek.
His mouth landed hard on mine before I could think to struggle.
The war between pain and pleasure, between panic and desire, tried to rip me in half. My blood came alive at the feeling of his lips against mine, racing and boiling, aching like it wanted to reach out and touch its likeness in Caesarion’s veins. His lips were soft but demanding, devouring mine in a way that made the earth spin under my feet. The magnetism between us raised the hair over every inch of my skin.
But as he loosened his grip to slide his arms around my back, tugging me closer, the sudden, sharp stab of agony through my brain ripped a whimper from my throat. The pain cleared my mind. Indignation at being manhandled strengthened my stupid swoony muscles and I planted my palms on Caesarion’s chest and shoved.
He stumbled back, dusky eyes open and really seeing me for the first time. They filled with a wild confusion that looked as intense and debilitating as mine.
“What’s wrong?” he inquired in Greek.
His voice flowed like honey, thick and sweet with an unexpected undertone of kindness. I swallowed hard and pressed a hand to my chest, begging my heart to return to a healthy pace. The storm of lust and fear and guilt and wonder refused to be calmed, and the uncertainty on Caesarion’s face shuffled toward concern.
“What’s wrong?” he tried again, in Egyptian this time, then again in Aramaic when he received no response.
Tears flooded my eyes. The situation had spiraled so far out of control. I bit my lip, wanting to answer, knowing I shouldn’t. Trying to decide what further harm talking could possibly do. Wondering whether I wanted to be paired with the kind of man who would have sex with a woman he’d never laid eyes on, the kind of man who assumed my body could be used for his pleasure.
Traveling alone had felt like such a small infraction to me—just another observation, something I did at least twice a month, except without an overseer along. I’d wanted to see his face, maybe meet his gaze and see what it felt like, but the pull underneath my skin was too powerful. It scared me, that with one single touch he could make me forget everything else in the universe—both of ours—in an instant.
I couldn’t lie to myself that this talking, touching, and kissing wasn’t a big deal.
The softness in his eyes, the concern in his voice, the way he watched me with interest, all insisted I stay. No matter how pissed I was at being attacked, I couldn’t deny—or ever forget—the way kissing him had blown me to bits.
Rules had already been broken, and pervy asshole or not, I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted to know Caesarion. My emotions and desires surged so far past reason that they drowned out the small part of my mind whispering to run.
“I’m not a concubine.” Out of the million feelings running hot, close to the surface, my irritation popped out first. Stars, Kaia.
“Then what are you doing here?”
I moved past him, taking care not to touch, and sank down onto the bench he’d abandoned moments ago. His attitude rose hot anger into my throat, and I wanted to let him have it. Ask him who in Tuat he thought he was, making assumptions about my willingness to kiss him, but the bio-tat reminded me quite sternly that the answer was simple—he was allowed whatever he wished.
I had wanted to know Caesarion, but did I want to know Pharaoh?
The coolness of the bench relieved some of the heat in my skin, and the scent of wet stone wound into my nose. A breeze ruffled the leaves, sprinkling the water in the fountain with sparkles of sunlight. It helped me calm down.
The brain stem tat reminded me that Pharaoh apologized to no one. Not to mention I had interrupted him in semi-private gardens without being invited, so his assumption about my intention had not been outlandish. Still. I hadn’t given this three-thousand-year culture clash enough thought.
Caesarion eased onto the other end of the bench, leaving a good eighteen inches of space between us. Goose bumps appeared along my arm, every inch of me swamped with the awareness of his nearness. How could Sarah possibly have missed the fact that Oz was her True for the first seven years we were at the Academy if they felt anything like this? It feels as though I’ll never have to wonder where Caesarion is again.
“Are you angry with me?”
I pushed my physical reaction to him aside as best as I could, flabbergasted by the incredulous tone in which he’d asked the question. “No. A little embarrassed and offended, maybe, but not angry.”
“Women are not usually offended when I accept their offerings.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
His dark eyebrows knitted together, giving him an expression that would have been as at home on a small child caught with a hand in an unapproved bag of treats. “I do not wish to upset or embarrass you. It’s not often that I am interrupted by accident.”
It wasn’t an apology, but given his upbringing and station, it was probably the best I would get. My wariness eased, defenses slipping. He seemed vexed but not angry, and more importantly, disinclined to lunge at me again. I’d give him an ancient clueless pass, because he’d been born into privilege and also because, like it or not, he was my True.
Now that I’d thwarted his attempt to use pleasure to dull the pain of his grief, Caesarion appeared lost again, the way he had at first glance. I wasn’t going to have sex with him. In truth, I wasn’t even sure I liked him, but it didn’t lessen my desire to find another way to ease his grief.
“I’ll be fine. You didn’t know.” It killed me a little to let him off the hook, but only minutes remained before I had to return. It seemed a waste to spend them fuming over a misunderstanding.
Relief loosened his posture as he turned to face me. “I have never seen you before this morning.”
“I’m sure you meet too many women to recall them all.”
“Now that I look closely, though, I am sure I would remember you. You never answered my question about your business in the garden.”
He slid a stubborn gaze my direction, giving me a ghost of a halting smile. Our eyes locked. Warmth pooled my middle and spread until my cheeks and neck felt swollen. Words stuck between my heart and my tongue. The rest of the garden, this world, my world, faded away. I don’t know how long we sat that way before I cleared my throat, desperate to hear him speak again before time ran out.
“I sought peace. What are you doing in the common gardens instead of your own?”
“This is my last morning in Alexandria, I thought … I don’t know. Mother loved the gardens.” Caesarion paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his long throat, tears appearing in his midnight gaze. “I suppose I sought peace, as well.”
My heart squeezed at his palpable anguish. He’d lost his mother mere hours ago to the same power-hungry lunatic bent on ending Caesarion’s life, as well. My hand itched to reach out and cover his, to give comfort and to memorize the feeling of his skin against mine. The tattoo linked to my brain overrode my desires based on contemporary custom, apparently choosing to forget the recent, rather physical interaction that had already taken place.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you find peace, however brief.”
That small smile again, one that made me certain a genuine version would stop my heart. “That would not have been peace. It would have been at best a temporary distraction. Although it would have sufficed, I find that your presence soothes just as well. Perhaps better.” Caesarion reached out, sliding a finger along my jaw before tipping my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “You make me feel strange. As though nothing is what it seems any longer, not even myself.”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and a sound like water crashing over rocks roared in my ears. My entire body stood at attention; my stomach tied into a knot, my heart tripped and paused in alternating patterns. It felt like his fingertip lit a fire on every inch of skin it touched.
I slid back a few inches, unable to think with him touching me, but not missing the flash of disappointment on his face when our skin lost contact. He dropped his hand to his lap, clenching and unclenching a fist.
I groped for more neutral ground, unwilling to broach the real reason we felt familiar to each other. “You said this is your last morning in Alexandria. You’re leaving?”
“I shouldn’t speak of it. Perhaps you give me strange feelings because you’re one of Octavian’s spies.” He slid almost imperceptibly closer.
I reached out and covered his hand with mine, unable to contain the gasp that escaped when our skin touched and fire crawled up my arm. The stabbing pain in the base of my skull returned with enough force to make me clench my teeth, the price of forcing my body to override the commands from the brain stem tat. It wrapped painful fingers around my neck that climbed toward my eyeballs, but I couldn’t stop touching him. Our skin felt fused, and when he flipped his palm against mine, locking our fingers together, the strangest combination of contentment and desire spread through my blood.
“I would never betray you,” I managed.
“I believe you.” Caesarion’s gaze throbbed with what appeared to be the same odd reaction to our meeting, though he still looked grief stricken and dazed. “To the general who caused my mother’s death, I am nothing but a threat to his quest for power, and Octavian is not the type of man to leave threats blowing in the wind.”
“Is he right to see you as an enemy?”
“I do not know. My paternity was kept from me for a time, and my place is here, with the Egyptian people. My family has ruled for generations.”
“But … ,” I nudged.
“Caesar left us when defending his relationship with my mother to the Senate became too difficult. Antony, not unexpectedly given his weak character, failed my mother as well. Octavian ordered her murder, and mine, and has eliminated thousands of my subjects. I have no reason to love Rome.” Bitterness clipped the words from his lips, each one pruned and spat into the air.
That Caesarion might have marched on Rome intent on revenge never occurred to me, but the hatred clogging the air between us made the possibility clear.
Of course, he would never get the chance.
Time was short for both of us. I’d forgotten my stupid watch, but the brain stem tat alerted me of Genesis time after my idle thought. Breakfast would end in twenty minutes, and it usually took at least ten to get out of the decontamination chamber. One of the rules for time travel, put in place by Originals like my grandfather, was that time marched in the past as it did in the present. It prevented stealing time and eliminated temptation for subterfuge. If I passed ninety minutes in the past, ninety minutes elapsed at home. I had to return to Sanchi.
I gathered the remainder of my self-control and stood, smoothing down my dress, already missing my True, already anticipating the cold loneliness of exiting his presence.
“It was a pleasure, Caesarion.” It took all of my concentration to force his given name past my lips, past the discomfort of bypassing the electronic fingers reaching toward my lips in an attempt to force an appropriate title out in its place.
If my lack of propriety bothered him, Caesarion did not mention it. Instead he reached out, almost like a reflex. “Wait. What is your name, beauty?”
My heart fluttered at the frank compliment. “Kaia.”
His hand tightened on mine, igniting sparks that raced up my arm, and my knees wobbled as his fingers caressed mine with a brief squeeze. “I am sorry to think we may not meet again, Kaia. Not in this world at any rate.”
I couldn’t tell him how far apart our worlds existed already. Instead I smiled, trying to memorize his face and body and the sound of his voice all at once. “The gods are cruel. You know that better than anyone. But I’m happy to have spent these moments in your company.”
It was the only true reply that came to mind, and one the bio-tat suggested he would understand. The usual parting words, like “see you later” or “be safe,” would have been lies, today or in the weeks to come. I couldn’t see him again without increasing the chance of getting caught, and he would never be safe again. If these were the only moments I would steal with him, they wouldn’t be tarnished by fakeness.
That would have been worse than not meeting him at all.
He nodded, a wrinkle appearing between his dark eyebrows. Perhaps he wanted to say something more but lost the words as I had, in the space between his heart and his mouth.
The bio-tat forced my knees into a slight bow as I turned and stepped quickly back the way I had come. The common gardens were massive; a hundred nooks and crannies lay waiting for me to duck inside and return home. I found one, a quiet grove shaded by olive and pomegranate trees. A still pool sat against one of the outer walls, soft blue lotus flowers drifting lazily across the green surface. As beautiful as these gardens were, as breathless and perfectly complete as the boy a few yards away made me, I didn’t belong here.
The self-destruct sequence built into my bio-tat meant I couldn’t stay, even if I wanted to, and Caesarion couldn’t leave. Jonah had brought the oranges—and small, inanimate trinkets could be snagged, like the locket around my neck—anything we could enclose completely in our hands. But not people. We hadn’t discovered a way to bring them forward, and we didn’t travel forward in time ourselves, either.
I felt sure that had we the chance, the two of us would fall in the kind of love that inspired people to write stories. Although Caesarion felt the pull between us, he couldn’t suspect the reason. He only knew that he’d met an intriguing girl in the gardens, but on the morning his entire world began to fall apart, he would soon be plagued with more pressing worries.
Caesarion had lost his mother, his father, and soon his own life would be sacrificed on the altar of Rome’s expanding power. Octavian’s march toward becoming Augustus, one of Western history’s single biggest influences, had begun. He would impart a lasting imprint on government, military tactics, and cultural expansion that would change the Western world forever. Nothing would change Caesarion’s and my circumstances, and nothing remained but for me to go back to Sanchi.
My fingers found the pendant hanging against my breastbone, toying with the pretty metal as I swallowed, struggling not to cry. How many times had Berenice said good-bye to Titus, assuming it would be the last time?
I drew strength from the past, leaned down and whispered “return” into Jonah’s cuff. The lights changed from red to green, and my adventure came to an end.
